Dear Ferret Folks- Well, got back from Mexico yesterday evening and yes, it was STILL IN BLOOM ten days after I had left it in bud. And no, Ping hadn't found a way to shred it, although I imagine him standing on the kitchen floor, looking up wistfully....He does enjoy the occasional bit of plant murder but he simply hasn't been able to find a way up and onto the counter where "The Jungle" is. He's been trying for the last year and a half, ever since we moved in. The blossoms are in no way, shape, or form pink. Nor are they large. As in the "large pink blossoms" that I spent sixteen years waiting for. Actually, they are a very bright yellow with delicate brown stippling. I took a tape measure to them. They are two inches high and an inch and a half wide. My husband tells me that a new one opens up about every other day. The flowering "raceme" is so heavy that he finally elected to wire it to the ceiling rather than risk having it collapse under its own weight. Here are pictures of the flowers and blossoming plant. http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/auntferret/IM0002751-1.jpg http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/auntferret/IM0002741.jpg http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/auntferret/IM0002761.jpg We have some plant folks on the FML that tell me I'm not dealing with a moth orchid because the foliage is all wrong for that. It is good to know that there are other plant folks on the FML. Thank you, Donna Rhodes and Vikki Mick. I accept that I may never know just what this plant is. I understand that there are more species of orchid than there are of any other group of flowering plants on earth. Even icy New England has a showy specimen, the wild Lady Slipper, which although considered endangered grows abundantly in my woods. http://www.giorgiozanetti.ca/serendipity_ottawa/ladyslipper_orchid_2_5.jpg Was it worth the sixteen year wait? These ruffled little sunny flowers are beautiful, beautiful.. I look straight up when I am cooking at the stove and there they are, right over my head like an orrery of bright little planets. They remind me of how remarkably my world has changed in the nearly twenty years that I waited for those flowers. Time brings change, and healing. Not at our pace, but at the pace of the cosmos itself. The Grand Plan. God's will. However you care to characterize the measure of our years. I was 27 when I was given that little bundle of leaves. I'm 43 now. My, how time flies. Alexandra in MA P.S. Yes Bobbi, I do love my Amana Radar Range. [Posted in FML 5863]